Трактат Я. А. Кулеши «Wiara prawosławna» и особенности трактовок понятий «схизма» и «уния» католическими и униатскими полемистами Речи Посполитой
The treatise «Wiara prawosławna» by J. A. Kulesza and the peculiarities of the interpretation of the concepts of «schism» and «union» by Catholic and Uniate polemicists of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes the interpretation of the concepts of «schism» and «union» in the treatise «Wiara prawosławna» by the Jesuit Jan Alojzy Kulesza in the context of the controversy over the church union between Catholics, Uniates and Orthodox in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th–18th centuries. It is noted that for Kulesza the concepts of «schism» and «union» were not only purely ecclesiastical terms, but, more broadly, religious and political concepts. In this case, the Jesuit directly and eloquently expressed what previous Catholic and Uniate authors had written. Thus, for them, «schism», i.e. Orthodoxy, was the embodiment of «disloyalty», «contrariness» and «rebellion» against God himself, his church and the order he had established on earth. Catholics and Uniates considered themselves as the personification of «loyalty» and «unity», i.e. «union». Having addressed the meanings that the representatives of the Orthodox Church attached to the concepts of «schism» and «union», which occupied one of the most important places in the religious life of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that Catholics and Uniates often had more «exclusivist» interpretations of various religious and political categories than the Orthodox. This was directly related to the ideas about the structure of the Christian community and church, typical of the representatives of these opposing confessions. In fact, the representatives of the Catholic and Uniate churches, unlike the Orthodox, who advocated the «conciliarity» of the church, were inclined toward «elitism» in matters of church governance, advocating for a centralized church hierarchy. The author of the article also connects this with the fact that Orthodox authors, unlike Catholics and Uniates, were much more zealous in advocating for the preservation of confessional boundaries and barriers, seeking to protect themselves from what they considered to be the corrupting «Latin» influence and absorption by Rome.

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